The standard at LSU should be 10-2.

In the "expanded playoff/NIL" era, the realistic standard for LSU football should be 10-2 (or better). That's the floor by which we should judge the administration, athletic department, athletic foundation, and head coach. Why not 12-0 or 11-1, well, shite happens. The ball bounces the wrong way, a horrible call by the officials, the team doesn't get up that particular Saturday, any number of reasons. You account for all of that with up to two losses.

Anything less than 10-2, we're not meeting the standard. How many less than 10-2 regular seasons are needed before pink slips are handed out? Depends on the internal variables, but that's for another thread.

What the standard should not be is "making the playoff." That's an outcome driven by variables that for the most part, LSU doesn't control. Other leagues, their preferential (or not) conference scheduling, officiating, balls bouncing one way or the other, committee/media bias, corruption, cheating, etc.

LSU can only control what LSU can control. A big piece of that is scheduling.

In this era, there is ZERO incentive to play any out-of-conference, marquee matchups on the road, at home, or the dreaded neutral sites. None.

We all know Birmingham is going to Birmingham, and that is mostly out of our control, except for being given preferential treatment around "night games" at home, when feasible. Which, in a batch of irony, contributes to fans leaving early. Other than that, we have no control over conference scheduling. As such, OOC scheduling should be as vanilla as possible, while also trying to juice the crowd, if we can. So, with four OOC games, it should probably look something like this, every season:

All four OOC games at home.
This should include one FCS, two mediocre G5s, and one mediocre P4.
The FCS and one G5 should come from in state, so put them on a rotation.
The other G5 and P4 should be mediocre, but with some attribute that may drive fan interest, be it name-ID, a controversial head coach, storyline, etc. Examples of who not to bring in: the likes of Middle Tennessee State and Ball State.
Lastly, no option teams.

Sample Year A:
McNeese
Louisiana Tech
Memphis
Stanford

Sample Year B:
Grambling
UL Lafayette
Tulsa
Houston

Really, wanted to put two things out there for discussion. One, our standard should be 10-2. Second, in this era, we need to produce a more favorable scheduling structure.